THE TWO PRAYERS
[p. 325] THE TWO PRAYERS
Ephesians 1: 15 - 23; Ephesians 3: 14 - 21
FER In Colossians we have the thought of the body, and association with Christ, while Ephesians carries us a point further, and we get union, and the witness. Ephesians is a climax, in a way.
Ques Is life a prominent question in Colossians?
FER Yes, I think it is. The great point is that you are in the life of the Head, and that brings in the thought of the assembly. Christ is the Head of every man, but you could not speak of every man being in Christ. The ‘body’ is in Christ, and the ‘body’ is in the life of the Head.
Rem “Ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power”.
FER Yes.
Ques What is the difference between association and union?
FER To illustrate it — John 20 is association, but I do not think it is union.
Ques Where do you get union?
FER In Ephesians 2. There must be two to get union, while, in association, it is all one, in the life of Christ.
Ques Is association higher than union?
FER It is a greater thing in one sense.
Rem Because we are the “many brethren” of whom He is the First-born.
FER Yes, that is a greater thing than to be united to Him.
Ques Which do you think is entered into first?
FER I am inclined to think that we enter into association first — it is our calling. God brings about union in order that the church may be a witness. You get association by the work of God. It involves sonship — [p. 326] sonship is the key to it.
Ques How do we get union?
FER By the power of God. There is what God has wrought in Christ, and then what He has wrought in us — “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus”.
Rem We are brought into union with the anointed Man.
FER Yes, by the work of the Spirit, not simply by the indwelling of the Spirit. If you come into association with Christ, you must be capable, and you are only capable by the work of God. You get the indwelling of the Spirit in Romans, but in Colossians and Ephesians you get the work of the Spirit, the work of God. “You hath he quickened”.
Ques. Is it individual?
FER It is effected in individuals, but the point is Jew and gentile together — “made us sit together”. The result is not individual, the result is Jew and gentile together.
Ques When you say there must be two for union, you mean Christ and the church?
FER Yes.
Ques Have we not two in Colossians?
FER You have two in Colossians, but it is not quite the same as in Ephesians. “Quickened us together with Christ” is individual, then you get the corporate, “raised us up together”, Jew and gentile together. “Quickened us together” must be individual, the work of God must have regard to us individually. You have to come to what is for God. The church has to be the vessel of glory — God’s witness — we lose sight of ourselves in a way. The bride is the Lamb’s wife, in whom you get witness for God. She has the glory of God in the presence of the universe.
Rem The great point in Ephesians is ‘risen’. The witness has come out now, and the meaning of chapter 3 is that the state is formed in the saints, in order that they may be the witness. “Unto him be glory in the church”.
FER Yes; the church, the bride, is the witness, all the work of God is to that end. The witness is filled unto all the fulness of God. God is really set forth in the assembly. That I understand to be the point of the prayer in chapter 3, “that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith”.
The church is to be adequate for the witness of the glory of God here.
Rem And if we enter into it, we have reached the point of God’s rest.
FER Exactly.
Rem I was referring to sitting down in the heavenlies, we have really reached the place of God’s rest in Christ, and then we begin to answer to Him.
Ques What is the point of the first prayer?
FER To know the hope of His calling, the glory of the inheritance, and the power of God which puts us into it.
Rem All is realised by the work of God.
FER Yes. There is a distinction between the work of the Spirit and the indwelling of the Spirit. Everything is in the Spirit, but a man may have everything in the Spirit, and yet have very little wrought in him.
Ques How is the testimony of the church borne now?
FER The testimony of the church is greatly obscured. The church is not answering to God at all, hence Christ is said to be “the faithful and true witness”.
Ques How does witness depend on union?
FER Because the church is united to Christ, and she is sharing the glory of Christ and His inheritance. She is the great witness of God’s triumph. Take Psalm 67 as an illustration — “God be merciful unto us, and bless us ... that thy way may be known upon earth”, etc. Israel will become God’s witness on earth. The church shares the glory, and the church is the great witness of the triumph of grace. The kings of the earth shall bring their glory and honour into it. We ought to anticipate the millennium.
Rem “Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages”.
Ques What is the hope of His calling?
FER I suppose it is heaven. “Blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places”. Hence heaven constitutes the hope referred to.
Ques Are “heavenly places” typified by the land of promise?
FER No. What I understand by the land of promise is the ground of purpose — that which was in God’s heart to lead the people into, in total contrast to all that with which they had been acquainted in Egypt. It is expressed in the words of Moses and the children of Israel as they stood on the wilderness side of the Red Sea — “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established”.
Ques How is it there is conflict in the heavenly places?
FER Because the power of evil is there — the seat of the power of evil working on earth is in heavenly places. The power of evil rules on earth outside man, for the seat of it is in heavenly places.
Ques Does not the church set forth what Christ was?
FER There is that set forth in the church which was not set forth in Christ — the complete triumph of grace. That could not be set forth in Him, grace had no personal application to Christ.
Ques What did you mean by ‘capability’?
FER How can you enter the heavenly places without capability — i.e., unless you are suitable?
Ques Is it not by the presence of the Spirit?
FER It is the work of the Spirit. Paul did not know whether he was in the body or out of the body when he was caught up into the third heaven. You are not capable except by what is brought about by Christ.
He is the “quickening Spirit”, and He will bring about capability in the way of spiritual affection, affection which is wrought in you by the Spirit. It is the work of the Spirit which brings in capability. “We love him, because he first loved us”. The Spirit works so as to make us conscious of the love of God. We get capability in the way of spiritual affection.
Ques Does it not say in 1 John 4 “he hath given us of his Spirit”?
FER That is more what is characteristic, and not capability. You get the idea of spiritual affection in the thought of Christ dwelling in the heart. “Ye, being rooted and grounded in love”, “strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man”, is that there may be capability. The “inner man” is the result of the Spirit’s work — the work of God — and you need to be “strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man” in order “that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith”, etc. In Ephesians the great thought is the presentation of God — the vessel in which God is presented. The church will be the witness in the presence of the universe of the exceeding riches of His grace.
Ques Was the prodigal ‘capable’ when he had on the best robe?
FER I should be inclined to think so. It is a question of laying hold of God’s thoughts. It is God’s pleasure, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, and that the church should be the vessel of His glory.
Ques Do we get it by faith?
FER I think it operates in that way — it is not Christ personally. Take the illustration of a wife whose husband is absent from home. She has affection for him, but not only that — she has also a picture of her husband in her mind. Now in the church there is the perfect picture of the Bridegroom. It is in the heart of the bride down here — it is “by faith”, for the simple reason that the bride is not where Christ is.
Rem This was lost when the first love was lost.
FER Yes.
Ques What is “the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints”, chapter 1.
FER Christ is “the head of all principality and power”, and all that which is revived in Christ forms the inheritance of God. God’s inheritance is everything which is revived in Christ. Why the inheritance is in the saints is because God’s enjoyment of it is in them.
Rem The saints are not the inheritance — they are the heirs.
FER Yes.
Ques What is revived in Christ?
FER Everything is revived in Christ for God.
Ques. Why “revived”?
FER Because everything has, as it were, died — Israel, the word of God, the nations, the temple, everything was deceased. In Christ everything revived.
Rem Because of their association with Christ.
FER Exactly. The bride has her own proper place in affection, and she shares the inheritance — the Head of all principality and power is Head of the church.
Rem “After two days will he revive us”.
FER That is it.
Rem God never gives up what He has once brought in.
Ques In saying that the word of God had died, do you mean that the prophetic word had ceased for a hundred years or more?
Rem It could not be said that the Son of man found much faith on the earth.
FER No. In Matthew is the revival of Israel — “Out of Egypt I called my son”. In Mark it is the revival of the word — ‘They went everywhere preaching the word’, ‘The sower sowed the word’. The word was revived in Christ. In Luke it is the revival of the nations — the Son of the Most High is “a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel”, and the glad tidings were preached to all nations. In John we have the revival of the temple — “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”.
Ques Why is that in John?
FER The Son of God is incarnate, and His body is the temple. Returning to Ephesians 3, I think we can see that the church is only adequate as a witness as Christ is dwelling in the heart by faith.
Rem The husband of the virtuous woman is “known in the gates”.
FER Yes. The declaration of union is future — union in its full sense is future. The church will be caught up.
Rem The end of John 3 — “The Father ... hath given all things into his hand”.
FER Yes, that is the Bridegroom.
Ques Who is “the friend of the bridegroom”?
FER John the baptist.
Whatever God intends to set forth in Christ will come under Christ. All is connected with Him in the mind of the bride?
Ques Are Isaac and Rebekah samples?
FER I think so. The power which God wrought in Christ is the power which is toward us. The Lord says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”, “I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again”. But it is also the exceeding greatness of His power toward us. It is impossible for Christ to be holden of death, and therefore it is the exceeding greatness of God’s power towards us, wrought in Christ representatively.
Ques Why representatively?
FER It is the exceeding greatness of His power towards us. God raised Him, not simply on His own account, but He raised Him on our account; the power of God wrought in Him towards us, and the point of it is that it is what puts us into the enjoyment of the inheritance. There are three chief points — the hope of the calling, the glory of the inheritance, and the power [p. 332] which puts us into it.
Rem God had us in view in raising Christ, that we might be quickened with Him.
Ques How is the church the ‘fulness’ of Christ?
FER It is what is adequate to set Him forth, just as a wife is adequate to set forth her husband. “The woman is the glory of the man”. Eve was adequate to the setting forth of Adam, and the church is, in that way, adequate to set forth Christ. The “exceeding riches of his grace” is seen, not in Christ, but in the church.
“The Christ” is an expression referring to what stands in contrast with the whole system of the world. It represents God’s system — the whole system before God in which the glory of God will be displayed.
Rem It is really the Man of all God’s counsels and purposes. “The Christ” conveys that — all the counsels and thoughts of God as they are going to be brought forth, all in “the Christ”.
FER The church is the very one in whose heart “the Christ” dwells. Chapter 3: 17 - 19 is collective, although it is brought to pass by the work of God individually. In Colossians it is more limited — more the thought of Christ in the saints morally.
Ques Is verse 17 a moral preparation for verse 18?
FER Yes, I think so — that ye “may be able to comprehend”, etc.
Ques Is it right to say that the resurrection of Christ from the dead is the great power of God?
FER Yes, the great power of God towards us. The point of the first prayer is that we may be conscious of what our portion is. That of the second is that there may be such a state in the church that God may be set forth, and it brings in the thought of the church as witness. The church is witness now. Christ comes out as the “faithful witness”, but, after all, it comes out in the church. The truth of the “faithful and true witness” really comes out after the church is taken. The church has failed here, and Christ presents Himself as “the faithful and true witness”, and after that there comes out in display in the bride, “the exceeding riches of his grace”. The church has failed, in this present time, in its responsibility, but then it will come out as a witness. “The glory which thou gavest me I have given them; ... that the world may know that thou hast sent me”, etc. After all, the church comes out as the witness, that the world may know.
The great point for us now is the witness for God down here. The gospel would have no power without the witness. The church is the witness.
Rem Through the defection of the church the gospel is greatly weakened.
FER Of course it is. The witness is in the power of the Spirit in the saints, and we ought to be able to appeal to it. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another”. You have an illustration of the witness of a heart that loved Christ in the woman who anointed His feet.
Ques Is the conflict individual?
FER I do not think so. The church, as such, is claiming the inheritance now before going into it. We want our loins girt about with truth. We have to take up the position individually, but we all stand together as one man.
Ques Will you say how we can practically claim the inheritance for Christ?
FER By separation from all the system in which the enemy of God has power.
Rem By testimony, too.
FER Yes. The Lord rode into Jerusalem, claiming the inheritance in lowliness and testimony. We ought to stand here as a faithful wife, not only in separation to Christ, but denying ourselves many things which come within our reach. We want to be fasting now.